Which Comes First, The Video or the Website?

I don’t know, but I do know you need both. There are good marketing reasons for this, and good search engine visibility reasons as well.

Search engines love video. And search engines love links. If your video is on YouTube or another free video hosting site, and you embed the video in your website or blog, Google likes that.

The web loves video. There is video everywhere. Most of it I wouldn’t dream of watching on a large flat panel display; but one out of ten is very good indeed and works to sell the concept or product the website is selling.

So a great video gets you a lot of mileage– on the web, on the flat panel display, on the big screen in a big meeting, or on your iPhone for a quick sales pitch on the 8:15 from New Haven.

So which comes first? Well, they both take time to do right. (Exception: webcam updates are allowed, but NOT as your main video.)

In fact, consider how they will work together. Where will video do a better job than words? Where will words and art prevail?

It’s a planning phase you can’t ignore– we call it Strategic Digital Marketing.

“Custom Creative Content”: A Web 2.0 Concept that Makes Sense

If the buzz on the web is to believed, Custom Creative Content is the next new thing.

A Company's Vision or Sales Concepts must be transmitted on many different levels.

But it really isn’t. What it is, really, is a manifesto of a company’s need to shift it’s marketing into “Web 2.0″ mode– a credo of engagement, involvement, and discussion, all spurred by the use of various media methods to create interest in you and what or whom you represent (product, personality, cause, service.)

It includes web presence and interactivity, from blogs and podcasts, to video casts and regular marketing videos, all offered for free as in the form of valuable information that may or may not include your product or primary message. What’s important is what the customer wants to know. In the case of a brand, it may be the brand’s history or culture. In the case of a product, it might be how the product is made. In the case of a service, it might be getting to know the people who provide the service.

All this revolves around a MIX of media, from web based, to directly marketed or presented. A website, YouTube, a blog or a forum, even Twitter and photostreams (and slideshows- remember them?) But also a DVD, a direct (snail) mail, TV Spots, newsletters (web and paper), and viral campaigns.

It’s not enough to simply hire a web specialist, programmer or a video producer. Your consultant must know how all of these activities intersect. They must have been there, and know where next to go. They have to know your story and feel your vision. They have to be able to create content.

We’ve been doing that since we were kids. But we’ve been forward looking just as long. We’re no stranger to video, meetings and presentations, audio, streaming, blogging, or  RSS feeding. We listen. We analyze. We propose. We execute. All the media, all the details. We measure, report, respond, refine and enhance. We grow your page views, enhance your image, get you applause and earn you the response you require.

What is Custom Creative Content? It’s a story, on many different levels.

• Level One: Concept. What is the plan? Who is the audience, where are they, what turns them on?
• Level Two: Words. The blueprint to all else that will follow.
• Level Three: media selection, based on the above.
• Level Four: Design. Make sure there is a common look and feel to all your content.
• Level Five: Creatively exploit each medium to its fullest, in light of your strategy. Testimonials? Interviews? Flow animations? Mind Maps?
• Level Six: Place the messages where they will be found. Web-Centric? Direct? Mass media? Auditorium? Trade Show? Brochure, free DVD, YouTube?
• Level Seven: Before paying for exposure, maximize your free exposure. Keyword optimization. Forum presence. Street Crews. PR. Speakers Bureaus. Viral Video. Word of Mouth.
• Level Eight: Track the action. See what works. Modify. Your keywords. Your creative. Your media placement. Your web presence. This is the thing…. you can make changes– even in video– overnight.
• Level Nine: Build on Your Success. Now, YOU’RE the expert. Be interviewed, appear on other people’s podcasts. Become the go-to-person locally or nationally on your subject.
• Level Ten: Never stop listening and conversing. All of tis has to be two way, whether you hand type your own responses, use autoresponders, or virtual assistants.

In the advertising business, this used to be called a campaign. But an ad campaign was simple. This is a Hydra. This is Now. And this works.

How Long Should a Video Be? PODCAST

Okay, this answer is a bit longer. Right click the Mp3 below to save, or subscribe to the podcast with one of the buttons on the right. Or use the player below.

Download longshort96.mp3

Summary: Determining the right length of a video is a matter of examining your audience, the viewing circumstance, and the audience’s desire to be there. We also discuss real vs. perceived length, and provide tips on how to make percieved lengths "feel" shorter.

How Long Should a Video Be?

Depends.

Snowed in with Mitch Miller and the Symphony Womens’ League

According to the National Weather Service’s list of "Worst Snow Storms in the State of Wisconsin", the seasonal latest of the big storms (storm number 10, in fact) happened on April 8, 1973, when "Madison had nearly 13 inches while Milwaukee measured a foot of heavy wet snow. Wind gusts above 50 mph.  Many roads, including the interstates, were closed for two days."

This has always been my Benchmark for snow that is just too darn late in the season.

Looking out my window now, and checking the date, I see that once again, we are past my benchmark, and it is snowing, and I remember back to that 1973 storm…

It was 9am the day of the storm and my business partner Ric and I were putting the finishing touches on a two-projector dissolve slide show we had produced for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. It had been reviewed and approved with a few changes the day before by the Symphony’s P.R. Director Andy Moquin. Those few changes kept us up all night re-laying out the slides, making a few subtle changes to the soundtrack (remember, this was all on audio tape), and reprogramming (or repulsing as we called it then) the show.

There was a deadline– 10am that day. Because that’s when we had to drive the gear and the show over to the Schlitz Clubhouse on Port Washington Rd. to unveil the show to the Symphony Women’s League at their annual fundraiser.

Fueled by Tostitos and Tab Soda, we made it. It was a clear day, no traffic, no problem.

There were a few speeches, an address by famed "Sing-Along" conductor Mitch Miller, who at the time was apparently a roving drive-by cheerleader for Symphony Fundraising campaigns, and finally– hours later– our show ran. It was a big success.

By this time we were pretty goofy from lack of sleep.

We commiserated, had our free cookies, packed up, headed out the back door, and then noticed the door wouldn’t open.

Two feet of snow.

Well, let me tell you– the small talk runs thin pretty quick when you are sleep deprived, 23 years old, and surrounded by the august members of the Women’s Symphony League. There were daughters of Beer Barons, descendants of heavy duty transformer companies, foundries, leather tanning companies, you name it.

They got tired of telling us how wonderful we were, and we got tired of hearing it (okay, not really, but the conversation slowed quickly. They just didn’t really know what to make of us. They kept asking us where our fathers were, assuming we couldn’t possibly be old enough to do what we were doing.)

Finally, being that we were in the Schlitz Clubhouse, a Beer baron descendant saw fit to break open the industrial sized cooler in the kitchen. Yes, we drank Schlitz.

Conversation loosened (mostly a blur) and suddenly, it was two hours later and a path had been plowed. We made our way to Ric’s Chevy Blazer and set off to our small office to unpack and call it a week.

Mitch Miller was none too happy, however. He was due in St. Paul at 4pm and that wasn’t happening. No cell phones. No iPods. No laptops. No PDAs. Just Mitch and the ladies.

And he didn’t drink.

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A Must Read: Bob Garfield’s Chaos Scenario 2.0

For those of us who use, produce, or work within the fringes of marketing messaging, Bob Garfield’s Advertising Age essay, Chaos Scenario 2.0, is must reading. In it he details the changing economics of advertising, the shift to direct, web, and social media, and the response– or lack thereof–from traditional ad media and agencies.

To quote one agency maven about a recent six Flags assignment: "They had a promotion for their 45th anniversary. They wanted to give
away 45,000 tickets for opening day to drive traffic. So we got a brief
to do whatever: ads, microsite, whatever. But our interactive creative
director just went off and posted it on Craigslist. Five hours later,
45,000 tickets were spoken for.

"No photo shoot. No after-shoot drinks at Shutters," he adds, with faux
regret. Then, with somewhat less irony: "Now, the trick is, how do you
get paid?"

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“An American Anthem” and YouTube

Ten year ago– in a simpler time– we produced a three-screen meeting opener for Walgreens called "An American Anthem." It was a celebration of Americana, which– after 3 minutes of history, pageantry, and patriotism– lead into a live singing of the National Anthem, followed by a rousing on-screen finale featuring the Blue Angels, fireworks and flag-waving, while on-stage, a nice pyrotechnic "kaboom" buttoned the whole thing up and lead to rousing applause.

It was produced fairly generically– without real branding other than a pairing of the United States and Walgreens flags in the final moments. Given that, we thought it might be worth making it available to other companies and groups who needed a nice, affordable, ready-to-go opener. So we converted it to single screen, took out the minute and a half orchestral accompaniment used by the live singer, and put it on a website and uploaded it to what was then the fairly new YouTube.

It got a fair number of viewings, but because viewers can leave comments, it also sparked a spirited discussion about politics, war, and the post-911 world.

Well, at least it got a response. If you’d like, go to this page at YouTube, have a look-see, and let us know what you think. Is this kind of statement appropriate for the post-911 world, or does it need to be tempered or modified to fly today? (It is video and is easily modified.)

And it still is available for rental…… (grin).

The Corporate Storyteller, Redux

I had a nice discussion with one of our clients yesterday, in which we discussed various executives we had worked with over the past thirty years. We agreed that those that were most effective could impact an audience by telling a story– and if they couldn’t, at least they were smart enough to create a vehicle that told the story for them.

The nature of the corporate story is that it ties current operations into past keystone events (real, apocryphal, or parable.)

The Wall Street Journal recently has been running a series of articles detailing the same thing. According to WSJ, “Corporate Storytellers” are folks who work with companies to unearth their past, particularly after years of conglomeration, buyouts, downsizing, and more. The story emphasizes the use of live narratives, even original songs, to help reinstate a sense of heritage, purpose and belonging.

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When Worlds Collide… or Combine

The great gold rush is on– again. People are rushing to the web with their video assets faster than you can say "Web 2.0".

This the time for you– the corporate or institutional marketer– to stake your claim– before the noise is SO loud that you can’t make a dent in the webscape.

The rush is so complete that the video hosting sites– like Google Video, YouTube, and of course iTunes, have rapidly gone from being just outposts of silly videos to being extensions of the major networks. Which is of course, a shame for the independents. In fact, MediaPost reports that some execs are predicting that the web will be primarily network-produced content within three years. Let’s hope not.

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